


Fate's A Bitch

by RileyC



Category: Oz - Fandom
Genre: Alternate Reality, Alternate Universe, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-05-20
Updated: 2010-05-20
Packaged: 2017-10-09 15:04:31
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,945
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/88688
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RileyC/pseuds/RileyC
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Christmas 1996: Chris Keller gets a wake up kick in the pants, courtesy of Fate.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Fate's A Bitch

_Christmas Eve, 1996_

Yeah, this was what he needed, hardly any Christmas spirit in sight.

Oh, sure, there in the background if you listened real close, some dame on the radio was singing about a sleigh ride, and there were some colored lights strung up over the bar, and a sad looking little Charlie Brown tree over in a corner, looking like you could blow on it and knock it over. But no one had knocked themselves out with the holiday décor. No one was shoving it down your throat and pitching a weepy hissyfit if you weren't feeling inclined to get with the program. Nope, everyone in here was all about minding their own business, searching for the meaning of their lives at the bottom of a glass.

_Yep, and God bless 'em, every one,_ Chris Keller was thinking as he contemplated his own glass of single malt Scotch. He knew better than to look for any answers there. In that one sense, he had it all over these rummies in fact, because he'd been born knowing what it was all about, and wasn't anything pretty anywhere. Nope, shit wrapped up in bright, shiny paper and tied with a bow -- that was life. Anybody who thought different had their head shoved so far up their ass they'd never see daylight.

"Mind if I join you?"

He looked up at the chick: no one he knew -- tall, thin, dressed all in black and looking ghostly pale for it. She was more than blonde, more like two shades short of albino, and made him think of frozen winter landscapes. He looked around the bar, saw plenty of empty room, shrugged. "Knock yourself out."

"Quite a day," she said, sitting down and resting long, white hands against the dark wood of the table.

He shrugged again, trying to feel out her game. Was she thinking to pick him up? Chris took in her bloodless appearance and the way a hint of frost radiated out from her, and thought he'd pass. Not his type, and -- he looked into her colorless eyes -- to be honest, she kind of creeped him out. "You got a name?" Making conversation wasn't the best way to make her go away, but her absolute stillness, unblinking gaze fixed on him, was bugging him.

"You could call me Moira."

"Yeah?" He smiled, winked. "Could I call you Tammy instead?" Man, she didn't even roll her eyes, let alone twitch a smile. Whatever. "You havin' a drink?"

"No." Nothing shifting in her implacable expression, she asked, "Will Bonnie take you back this time?"

Chris froze, glass of scotch raised halfway to his lips, ice cubes clinking against each other. "What?" He knew Bonnie's friends and no way this chick was one of them. "How in hell does that concern you?"

"Your time is running out," she went on, just as if he hadn't spoken, an echo of that tinkling ice in her voice. "You've already thrown away so much of it." She reached across the table so fast all he saw was a blur, and gripped his wrist; her touch was like ice, her hold on him immobilizing. "How many more chances to do you think you have?"

He pulled and twisted, the table rocking with his efforts to get free -- and no one in the bar casting a single look their way. "Look, bitch, who the fuck asked you?" This was crazy, no way she could be this strong. "What in hell are you doing?"

Her free hand came up to latch onto his coat collar and drag him out of his chair and part way across the table. "Giving you one last chance, asshole," she growled before shoving him back in the chair. She gripped his hands, her own so cold they hurt and it felt like he was getting frostbite. "Interested?"

~*~

 

Flattened; he felt … flattened, absolutely wrung out. Like he'd run a goddamn marathon, uphill all the way.

When he was a kid there'd been this one priest he used to talk to, Father Hennessey. Never tried to mess with him, talked to him like the questions he asked really mattered. One time they'd gotten to talking about angels, about if it was true you became one when you died and went to heaven. "Oh, no, no, no, boy," Father Hennessey had answered him. "All the angels that there ever were or are, were created by the Almighty many, many years ago. There's not so many up in heaven now, though, as there was back in that day. Do you know why, Chris?" He'd solemnly shaken his head no, and Father Hennessey had told him about the angels cast out of heaven because they chose to follow Lucifer. "That's the demons, Chris, angels that once were. Remember that when someone's telling namby-pamby stories about darlin' sweet angels. Remember they're the other side of demons." And Chris had asked how did you tell the difference, and Father Hennessey'd got this look on his face, like maybe he'd looked in the face of one or the other sometime, somewhere. "By their works, Chris, you'll know them by their works. And, boy," the priest had cautioned him firmly, "don't go expecting the angel to leave you feeling anymore happy and content with yourself than the demon'd do. That's not their job. Their job's to kick us a good hard one in the backside."

He wondered what Father Hennessey's call on Moira would have been. She had certainly given him a kick in the ass … if he believed it all.

As warmth seeped back into his bones, Chris made a slow scrutiny of his surroundings. Snow was still coming down hard outside, Christmas lights twinkling through it all, and in the bar … nothing had changed. The same sorry drunks were scattered around the place and the radio was still playing the same song, like not even a second of real time had ticked by.

Maybe it hadn't. Maybe Moira and everything had all been inside his head and he could erase it like an Etch A Sketch with a few more fingers of Scotch.

That's what he wanted to do. What she expected him to do. Chris had seen the knowing contempt in her eyes, pale and cold as a winter sky.

He took a sip of his drink, the whiskey burning and bitter on his tongue, and wondered what the hell any of it mattered anyway. Sure, everything she'd shown him rang all too true. If he didn't change his ways he would end up in prison, end up dead in prison? Oh, yeah, there was a shocker all right. He'd always known that was his fate, and Moira hadn't shown him any reason to fight what was pre-ordained. Okay, yeah, maybe take one fuck up here or there out've the picture and that might eliminate some of the collateral damage, leave some innocent bystanders unharmed. He guessed he could do that, out of the goodness of his heart, Chris thought, smile bitter and self-mocking.

But what was in it all for him?

When he'd asked Moria that, all she'd shown him was some other guy all by himself in some glassed-in prison cell, looking like he'd lost everything in the world that ever mattered to him. The guy wasn't anyone Chris knew, anyone he'd ever seen around. Why should he give a fuck?

Remembering, though, how lost and alone that guy had looked, like all the life had left him even though his heart was still pumping, Chris couldn't deny he felt a pang of … something, something he wanted to hang onto. Like, if he did, then he could reach out and touch him, and tell Toby it was gonna be okay.

Toby?

He blinked, looked around again. Who the fuck was Toby? And what the hell did Chris owe him?

Tired of it, angry because he couldn't see any kind of goddamn point to it, Chris pushed back from the table and stood up, dropping some cash on the table to cover the drinks and stalking for the door. He couldn't get out of there fast enough and welcomed the cold blast of air that him square in the face. He sucked in a lungful, letting it out as a misty cloud, and turned his face up to the falling snow, wishing himself a million miles away.

No, wishing himself years back in time, to when things could have really changed, to when it might have mattered. It was too late now, it had been too late for a long, long time, and there was no getting off this path he'd made no matter how much he wanted to.

There was nothing for him up ahead. Never had been. Or, if there ever was, he'd lost the chance so long ago he couldn't even remember the moment it slipped from his grasp.

He sighed and zipped up his jacket, pulling on his gloves as the light changed and he started across the street, and the last thing Chris Keller ever saw in that life was the glare of headlights blinding him as they came straight for him…

=======

 

_Christmas Eve, 2006_

"Needs more tinsel."

"It does not need more tinsel."

"Hmph."

As hmphs went, it was very mild, but Chris had a feeling when he came downstairs tomorrow the tree would look like a tinsel bomb had gone off in the living room.

He settled comfortably on the big couch, holding Toby close as they watched the tree, its light casting the only illumination against the snowy darkness outside. It was a good night to be cozy warm inside, and off hand he couldn't think of any reason to ever move again.

"What's in the package?"

"Which one?"

"The big red shiny one with the white bow."

Toby pretended to peer at it quizzically. "Don't know. Guess we'll find out in the morning."

"Or," Chris kissed the nape of his neck, "we could open them now. It's tomorrow somewhere in the world."

Another huff, this one much more definitive in nature. "We open presents Christmas morning. That's how things are done," he said with an air of authority that defied anyone to challenge him.

Chris only held him closer, not really minding. After all, he knew nothing would ever top the gift he'd been given ten years ago this night.

Head resting on his shoulder, Toby reached for his hand, twining their fingers together, and -- as if he'd read his mind -- asked, "Do you ever wonder what would have happened if you hadn't slipped and conked yourself on the head that night?"

"I slipped and conked myself because you almost ran me down in the crosswalk."

"I swerved to miss you; you slipped all on your own, Keller."

Well … sometimes he thought he might have been pushed.

"Yeah," he squeezed Toby's hand, "I think about it. Think about how it would've been if we'd never met."

"Nope." Toby turned to look at him, touched his face thoughtfully. "We were always going to meet somewhere, sometime."

Thinking of what Moira had shown him, that lost and desolate Toby grieving something -- someone -- he'd lost, Chris was grateful they had been able to skip at least one of those alternatives, however.

"Yeah? We were always meant to be, huh?" he said, sinking back into the cushions as Toby leaned close and kissed his smile.

"Baby, we're inevitable," Toby said and kissed him again as if to prove his point.

As he settled back and cradled Toby to him, one hand tangled in blond curls as he let himself be kissed breathless, Chris wasn't about to argue with him.


End file.
